Ripster, if you want to discuss the springs, why would you follow me where I post and ask me about the springs I do not know about??? (
See here) Please delete the off topic posts because it is like pollution(not needed and harmful by its existence).
You can see
here to see what factors are considered in determining a compression spring.
Obviously, material used (type of metal used) matters. I heard from a KBDMania member who works in the metal industry say that if a spring is coated method used for the coating would affect uniformness of the springs. If you use certain coating procedure the coated springs could behave rather randomly. You always complain about Korean Hanzo steel or whatever, but as you can see in the spring calculator website(which is from a US website, a website you can trust I suppose!) different types of stainless steel would result in different spring coefficient and max load. This is not against Hooke's law. Just different max loads and spring constant for different materials used. I don't understand why you don't understand this.
Moreover, max load of a spring cannot be measured inside a Cherry switch because the spring never reaches the minimum length inside the switch. The slider touches the bottom switch housing so that the spring cannot be fully compressed inside the switch. So, your measurement of max force of a spring is not correct. In particular the spring specs discussed here e.g. 62g is max load, not bottoming out force which is specific to Cherry switch. It is reasonable to deduce a spring spec is not specific to Cherry switch, no?